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Lac Megantic residents frustrated with lack of information

Patrice Laframboise, who lives in Lac-Mégantic’s “red zone,” had an emotional meeting with the Quebec town’s mayor Friday.

Mayor of Lac Megantic Colette Roy-Laroche (right) speaks with resident Patrice Laframboise, who pleaded for more information as to when he can return to his home in the "red zone." Laframboise later praised the town's executive. (CHRISTINNE MUSCHI / REUTERS)

Frenette and his family are among the estimated 200 to 300 Lac-Mégantic residents who remain barred from their homes since Saturday’s train derailment and explosion forced the evacuation of about 2,000 people.

Sitting on a bench in the local high school, now a hub for evacuees, Frenette knows it could have been worse. On Saturday morning, when balls of fire tore through the city’s downtown, killing fifty, Frenette wrapped his four year-old daughter Zoe in a blanket and ran barefoot to safety.

“It’s for things like that that you save yourself,” he said, pointing at the girl as she played nearby.

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But, while they’re glad to be alive. Frenette and others in his position are getting impatient.

He is staying with his girlfriend’s parents — nice people, he says, but “it’s hard not being at home.”

And he’s been sleeping badly, plagued by flashbacks of the fire that almost claimed his life.

As a result, he’s been drinking, “to forget things.”

“But after about 15 beers you don’t get drunker, you get more sober,” he said. “And then you can’t sleep.”

He thinks it will be months before he can return to his apartment, just half a block away from the Musi-Café, a bar where dozens died in the blaze. And even when he does return, he doubts he’ll be able live there again: the third floor, where he lived, was badly damaged by smoke.

Neither the mayor nor Quebec’s department of public security could provide a timeline for when the remaining evacuees will be able to return home.

There are many reasons for the continued evacuation order, said Jean-Thomas Fortin, a public security spokesperson: not all the oil spilled Saturday morning has been cleaned up yet; most buildings in the red zone are without electricity; and the air quality may pose a public health risk.

At a press conference Friday, the provincial police said four more bodies have been found. Fifty people are feared to have been killed but only 28 bodies have been found so far. Only eight of them have been identified.

Police say their search for bodies had been slowed by the release of gas containing toxic benzene from the remaining oil.

Still, some are frustrated by the slow progress towards reintegration. Patrice Laframboise, a family doctor who lived in the red zone, confronted Lac-Mégantic mayor Colette Roy-Laroche after a press conference Friday, and chided her for not giving evacuees more information.

“I have to reorganize my life,” said Laframboise, grasping the mayor gently by the arm. “I have to know where I’m staying in the next weeks and months.”

“If I have to rent a house for the next three months, I need that information.”

“I will immediately pass the message to the coordination centre,” the mayor replied. “I understand you.”

Laframboise’s address, 5105 Blvd. Des Vétérans, is down the street from residences that were reduced to ash.

His house seems only to have suffered broken windows and stripped paint, he said, though the full extent of the damage is still unknown.

“I am one of the lucky ones,” he said.

Now, he’s staying with his in-laws. “We’re not doing camping at the Polyvalente, like some others,” he said, referring to the high school where about twenty evacuees are still sleeping on cots in the gym.

“Right now, we have patience. But when you don’t have information, the impatience is coming in,” he added.

Laframboise isn’t sure he’ll be able to live in his house whenever he is allowed to return – the building stands amidst rubble now.

“I am taking it one day at a time,” he said.

But he said that maybe by resettling downtown, he would encourage others to do the same, and revitalize this wounded city.

“If I stay there, the downtown will rebuild,” said Laframboise.

“You have to put a flower somewhere, and the trees will grow after that.”

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